Costa Rican girls — and boys — get into prostitution for a variety of
reasons in Costa Rica. Most of the reasons have to do with family
economics. Some households that cannot make ends meet push their
kids into selling themselves.

In the campo, the countryside, some mothers tell their sub-teen
girls to go hang out around the local bar to sell themselves to the
patrons. The girls take their earnings home so the family can
survive. In other cases, the mothers of these kids are just money
hungry. The easiest way for them to make money is to pressure
their children into prostitution.

Rufianería
is the term used in law to describe this activity of pressuring someone
— of either sex — into prostitution and living off those
earnings. It is a voracious kind of pimping. It is more
common in Costa Rica than most people believe.

Information for this article has been gained from a series of interviews with prostitutes who volunteered their life stories.

The young never have a chance to improve themselves. Prostitution
is all they know from a very young age. As soon as they are older
and they can fend for themselves, the family sends them off to San
José or to one of the tourist areas in the country like Coco,
Jacó, or Quepos.

In other cases, friends coax other friends into
prostitution. They tell them about their lives in the big
city where they can meet foreigners and make lots of money.
Some of the young adults send some money home to support their
families. Others get into drugs and pornography.

Prostitution is not on trial here. The vicious cycle
is. The cycle that begins with mothers — and in some cases
fathers — pushing their kids into prostitution to pay bills or worst
yet, to pay for their vices. The police in Parque Morazán
have seen fathers dropping their underage daughters off for work in the
evening. The work the youngsters are given is to sell
themselves as prostitutes to those in cars driving by the park or to
the foreigners walking the streets.

Costa Rican law gives every adult the right to sell sex because prostitution is not illegal in this country.

The point is the children never become adults to decide if they want to
sell sex. They are usually selling it way before they ever become
adults because someone else pushes them into it. Once the cycle
begins, it is almost impossible to stop. Young girls do not
even finish sixth grade in school. With no education, they are
doomed for the rest of their lives to prostitution. Usually, they
have a multitude of children. It is common to meet a middle-aged
prostitute with four, five or more kids.

What happens when the prostitutes are not young or cute anymore and
they cannot sell themselves as readily as they once did? How do
they feed all those mouths? Well, they end up on drugs or selling
drugs to others. The children get no education and end up in
prostitution, too. The boys usually end up in gangs and turn to a
life of crime.

Many foreigners do not care where prostitutes come from in Costa
Rica. They do not care about the social-economic problems that
drive the young into such activity. They just want an ample
supply when they come here for their sex vacations. Costa Rica’s
lackadaisical attitude about pimping prostitutes contributes to the
countries worldwide reputation as a sex tourism destination.

Costa Rica’s position on prostitution and pimping has put the country on the United States’ tier 2 watch list for human trafficking because women and children are trafficked in and out of the country for commercial sexual exploitation.

The country has become a mecca for foreign prostitutes because of Costa Rica's sex tourism industry.

Most foreigners believe sex is a regulated business here. They believe
the government controls prostitution and prostitutes run around with
government-issued identification cards to prove they are free of
disease. This is not true at all. Some of the major hotels that cater
to hookers to increase their casino and bar businesses request
identification but only to prove the person is an adult, nothing more.
They do not request a health certificate.

The country may be on the verge of waking up. Sunday’s front-page
headline in the country’s largest local newspaper is “Prostitutes work
in massage parlors with business licenses.” The story was similar to that published here
two weeks ago. These massage parlors are nothing more than businesses
pimping the available prostitutes. The girls in these places usually
work there and let themselves be pimped because they have a reason not
to go to a local bar or hotel. They also like the mostly daytime hours.

Here are some other reasons: 1.) They are older or have lost their
looks. 2.) They are pregnant. 3.) They are married or are involved in a
serious relationship. 4.) they are in school or the university, or 5.)
they are in Costa Rica illegally. Many of the girls in these places
are from Nicaragua.

Curiously, pimping is illegal in Costa Rica but these establishments have business licenses, usually as a pension
or rooming house. Everyone in the government and all the judicial
authorities know and have known pimping goes on in these places.
Everyone knows pimping is rampant in Costa Rica. It seems the country
is exploiting its young and taking advantage of its disadvantaged for
profit.

What is troubling is this attitude — sacrificing scruples for profit —
goes beyond prostitution and pimping and exists deep inside the court
system and politics as well.

Garland M. Baker is a 36-year resident and naturalized citizen of Costa
Rica who provides multidisciplinary professional services to the
international community. Reach him at info@crexpertise.com. Baker has
undertaken the research leading to these series of articles in
conjunction with A.M. Costa Rica. Find the collection at
http://crexpertise.info, a complimentary reprint is available at the
end of each article. Copyright 2004-2008, use without permission
prohibited.

A.M.
Costa Rica's professional directory
is where business
people who wish to reach the English-speaking community may invite
responses.
If you are interested in being represented here, please contact the
editor.

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Search continues for man
whose truck slid into river

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Rescue workers searched all day Sunday for a man whose truck slid into
the Río Tíbas during a landslide the previous evening,
said a Cruz Roja spokesman. At about 6 p.m Saturday a landslide swept two vehicles off
the road near Barrio Socorro in Santo Domingo de Heredia, said Cruz
Roja spokesman Carlos Bolanes. After working for three hours Cruz Roja
rescue teams were able to rescue one man, said Bolanes. The man, the
driver of a car, was treated and sent to his Montes de Oca home,

Rescue workers labored until 1 a.m. searching the river and began again
at 5 a.m. Sunday morning with no results all day, said Bolanes.

Three held after police
find fake uniforms, gear

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Hours after the murder of a truck driver in Quepos, police officers in
Esparza arrested three men they suspect were dressing up as fake police
officers and committing various crimes, said a spokesman.

In the early hours of Sunday, Fuerza Pública officers pulled
over a Toyota and arrested three suspects outside of a bar in downtown
Esparza, said a security spokesman. The officers seized firearms, ski
masks, handcuffs, and fake police uniforms from the vehicle, said the
spokesman.

They also found a fake license plate which looked like an official plate from the Judicial Investigation Organization

Saturday police discovered the body of a semi-truck driver in
Marítima plantation in Quepos. According to the Fuerza
Pública in Quepos, the driver had called in reporting that men
in judicial uniforms were attacking his truck.

Esparza officers arrested three men with the last names of López
Mendoza, Álvarez Valverde, and Salazar Ferreto, said the
spokesmen. Police said they found uniforms marked as Policía de
Control de Drogas in the detained car and that they found a bag of
cocaine.

The security spokesman did not say if the arrests were related to the murder of the truck driver.

Our reader's opinion

Debit cards put at risk
when used at local bank

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

I wrote you before concerning Internet bank theft and fraud, where my
wife and I who live in Arenal, had our Banco National accounts emptied
out by someone who got our Internet passwords, etc. I am writing again
concerning the same subject because people need to know.

In this case someone at Banco National, probably at the branch here in
Arenal, has been accessing our U.S. account and making or attempting to
make withdrawals, apparently using our debit card (from our U.S. bank).

I feel certain that it happened or that they got the information
because on one or two occasions, my wife and I have had to take the
card into the bank to make the withdrawal, and the cashier takes the
card to the back for several minutes and returns to complete the
transaction. We were told by our banker in the U.S. that you should
never let a debit card out of your sight if being used at a bank or for
any purchase and that apparently credit cards are safer.

I know from being in business here and having a merchant account at
Banco Nacional to accept credit card payments, and also from
having a merchant account in the U.S., that it is possible to take
information that you have on file to make an unauthorized withdrawal
from the information of the first transaction. I don't believe that the
fraud happens through the automatic teller machines but inside (the
bank in this case).

I am afraid it is coming to a critical point regarding Internet and electronic banking, which many of us expats use.

Anarchy. That's how one recent victim in Escazú described the country's crime situation.

After a violent house robbery in Bello Horizonte and what seems to be a
wave of crime crashing around them, Gary Nash and more than 30 of his
family members are planning on leaving the country.

July 12 six armed men, five of whom wore ski masks, broke into Nash's
home, said the 55-year- old resident. The robbers tied up Nash, his
wife, stepdaughter, and mother-in-law and began systematically looting
the house, he said.

It was pure luck that Nash's 7-year-old daughter was playing at a
neighbor's house, he said. Nash, originally from North Dakota, has
lived in Costa Rica for 15 years and this is the worst crime has ever
been, he said.

The recent robbery isn't the only violent act pushing him and his Costa
Rican family out, said Nash. The day before the house robbery, two men
on a motorcycle shot at driver in his vehicle, said Nash. The
motorcyclists were believed to be the same men who had who just
caused a scene at ta local country club, said Nash.

Men have robbed other members of Nash's family at gunpoint. Gangs have
pillaged the homes of many neighbors as well as prominent businesses in
downtown Escazú, said Nash, who is a health care recruiter. His
comments to A.M. Costa Rica were prompted by a news story last week
quoting both the Judicial Investigating Organization and the local
Fuerza Pública police director saying that crime was going down.

“Everyone is quite alarmed by it,” said Nash of others in the area.
Nash said five of the houses in his neighborhood are owned by his
family. The land has been in the family for 50 years, he said. The land
previously belonged to the grandfather of Nash's wife, who is Costa
Rican.

As one member of the masked gang was about to start a brand new pickup
truck in the driveway, dogs started barking and Nash's neighbor saw the
robber and yelled that she would call the police. After that the gang
quickly dispersed with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry but
nothing more, said Nash.

But after after being tied up and having guns stuck in their faces, the family has had enough, said Nash. “I lived in

Los Angles for 19 years and never had bars on my windows or doors and
my house was never robbed,” said the businessman. Nash said 30 to 40 of
his family members were planning on leaving the country because of
violence.

Nash said he didn't feel the country was safe for his daughter. “I'm
not going to raise her in this kind of environment,” he said.

On top of it all Nash said he is frustrated with the legal and judicial
system. According to Nash judicial investigators said they could not
capture fingerprints from objects like a metal telescope, wooden
jewelry boxes, or other plastic items in the home. Agents finally took
the duct tape used to tie up the family for fingerprints, he said.
Judicial officials were unable for comment Sunday.

When the family drove in to San José and stood in line to report the
crime at the Judicial Investigation Organization, a representative said
they could only hear from one of the four victims, said Nash.

Earlier when local Escazú police officers arrived to investigate the
scene one officer asked for a flashlight and began to rummage
suspiciously through the closets saying a robber could still be hiding.
The officer took the flashlight, said Nash.

Mario Varta a local Fuerza Pública officer confirmed that Escazú
officers had investigated the case although he did not know the details
of the house search. Varta said the particular band of armed men is
believed to rob a house every day in Escazú and that usually the group
uses a Hyundai. Nash's stepson saw a white Hyundai parked near the home
as he was leaving just before the robbery said Nash. Recent areas
robbed have included Bello Horizonte, Guachipelin, and San Rafael, said
Varta.

If officials expect crime to go down there needs to be a complete
overhaul in the system, said Nash. Better laws, better funding for the
police, courts and prison system. Rather than a slap on the wrist
criminals should receive real sentences, he said. “The legal system is
a laughing stock to anyone who has any experience with it,” said Nash.
Although Nash is unhappy with the system, he said he strongly believes
victims should report crimes or else nothing will ever happen or be
recorded and it will appear as if crime is going down.

“It's sad because this is a beautiful country but there's nothing that
makes it worth risking our lives.” Nash said he and his family are
getting their properties ready for sale and plan to move to Florida.

New book features importance of Cartago basilica on Costa Rican life

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The cultural ministry will present a new book detailing the history and
cultural importance of the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de
los Ángeles Tuesday at 7 p.m. in parish hall of the Cartago
church.

The book, titled “La Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los
Ángeles: Testimonio Arquitectónico de la Fe
Costarricense” was written by Sonia Gómez, an employee of the
Centro de Patrimonio of the Ministerio de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes,
according to a release from the ministry.

As the title suggests, the book will offer an architectural testimony
of the Costa Rican faith through an account of the basilica's physical
structure, its history, and the religious impact on the country,
accompanied by 36 pages of photographs taken by Jorge Eddy
Solórzano, according to the release.

The basilica is the site of a massive religious pilgrimage that ends
every Aug 2 with the a religious service at the basilica. Up to 1.5
million faithful make the walk to the site every year from all over the
country and as far away as Nicaragua and Panamá.

The basilica houses the La Negrita statute that is the tangible
representation of the Virgin Mary, in her manifestation as
Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles.

Gómez and Solórzano will be joined at the event Tuesday
by María Elena Carballo, the minister of culture, the release
said.

While most persons go about our daily business, be it work, school,
retired relaxation and only enjoy the occasional vacation or noteworthy
experience, there are some who decide to take that extra step
into the unknown, to live a life dominated by adventure and excitement.

Charles McKenna is one such man.

Originally from New Jersey, McKenna, 56, has lived in 11 different
states in the United States and worked a slew of different jobs,
including a cross country ski instructor, a truck driver, massage
therapist and lastly, as a special education teacher in Hawaii. Then
something changed.

“In 2004 my life went to hell.” McKenna said, recounting the death of
his father in October followed by his sister in December, among other
personal crisis. From this apparent chaos, McKenna began to rebuild his
life, centered around his love of bicycling and an experience in 1998
where he biked from the West Coast to the East Coast of the United
States.

“Getting towards the end of my ride I said, 'Gee you know this isn't so
hard, what's next?'” He remembered. Using the inherited stocks he'd
acquired from his father and sister, he decided his next logical step;
he was going to bike from the Arctic Circle to the southernmost point
in South America, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, and beyond.

On July 25, 2005 he began his epic journey 200 miles north of
Fairbanks, Alaska. Four months later, he had reached Mazatlan, Mexico,
where he bought two properties and briefly returned to Hawaii to sell
his old house and settle affairs. Following a long delay, he began
again this May 1.

Sunday he was just outside of Quepos in Londres at Finca Almanecer
on the same 27-speed recumbent bike he'd began with in Alaska.
Having covered so much ground, McKenna seems fully aware that he is
living a dream.

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. it sort of the
cycle tourist's dream,” he said. “I'm doing what all my friends did
when they were in their mid-twenties!”

Setting up his inherited stocks to live on about 5 percent each year,
roughly $1,200 a month, while also renting his properties in Mexico,
McKenna fully expects to conquer New Zealand, Australia and Vietnam
next.

Biking roughly 40 to 50 miles a day, McKenna said he has no real
schedule. he simply rides from town to town, staying in cheap hotels
and hostels, only taking out as much money from automatic tellers as he
thinks he will need to reach the next stop. He doesn't really mind the
service charge fees.

“I put up with that as opposed to taking a bunch of money with me and getting robbed,” he said.

He has had plenty of adventures on the way here. He remembers meeting a man named Ron in a California

A.M. Costa Rica/Finca Almanecer

Charles McKenna and his bike

hiker-biker camp site. Ron was making his way north with a grocery-store cart full of his possessions.

“God told him to start in Tijuana and walk up to the Oregon border and
talk to people about Jesus,” McKenna laughs, “Attached to this cart at
about a 45 degree angle was a 4-foot wooden cross.”

What was his worst experience? His first day. Pushing his bike more
than riding in the permafrost of the Arctic circle, he came to “Finger
Rock” a notable landmark in Alaska.

“The wind is blowing 40 miles-an-hour and I'm trying to pound my tent
stakes into permafrost and it ain't happening,” He said. He eventually
spied a nearby bathroom structure. “So that's where I spent my first
night, inside an outhouse.”

“It got better from there.” He added, explaining that he is thoroughly
enjoying his time here in Costa Rica. He has been staying in Londres
for the past four days resting.

“The nature, the whole natural thing, it's absolutely beautiful,” He
said, but added that the roads were dangerously narrow and in many
places do not have a shoulder or space for bicyclists.

He is scheduled to leave Londres today on his way to Argentina, by way of Chile.

“I'm going to try to get to Antarctica,” He said, discussing his
immediate future plans, “Just so I can get off the boat, get someone to
take my picture and run back to the boat and say 'There! I did it, I've
been to all seven continents!'”

For now, McKenna's plans remain largely undecided, but one thing is
certain, from here on out, there will be no more of the daily grind,
9-to-5 job.

With a name like "Leatherback Turtle" you might think the sea turtles
could stand up to just about anything the ocean can throw at them, and
for more than 100 million years, they have. But tough, long-lived
critters though they are, the population of leatherbacks in the eastern
Pacific Ocean has plummeted by over 90 percent in the last 20 years.

Like many species that migrate across a vast ocean, pinpointing all the
possible causes of their decline is difficult and figuring out where
conservationists might be able to intervene on their behalf is hugely
challenging. But a major effort to tag and track leatherbacks that nest
on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica has yielded unprecedented insight
into their behavior.

While most sea turtles, including other populations of leatherbacks,
have widely varied dispersal patterns as they fan out across the ocean
from the beaches where they nest, the leatherbacks from the beaches at
Playa Grande have been found to consistently follow a relatively narrow
corridor out into the sea, past the Galapagos Islands and across the
equator to an area in the South Pacific where they linger at length.
This discovery could be the key to the leatherbacks' salvation.

"Given that the turtles seem to move in a predictable way from the
nesting beach through the equatorial region from roughly February
through April, we could potentially suspend fishing in certain areas
while the leatherbacks are passing through that part of the eastern
Pacific," said George Shillinger, doctoral candidate in biology at
Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station.

By taking the new data correlating turtle movements with various
environmental features along their route and comparing that with the
timing of fishing activity in the different areas the turtles travel
through, the researchers can pinpoint the times and places where
turtles are at the highest risk — thus providing new opportunities for
improved management of the leatherback population.

Shillinger is the first author of a paper published in the July 15
issue of Public Library of Science Biology and part of a large team of
biologists and physical and biological oceanographers from the United
States, France and Costa Rica who worked on the multiyear study.

The leatherback tagging study is part of the Tagging of Pacific
Predators program, which has tagged other animals including the
white shark, bluefin tuna, black-footed albatross and elephant seal.
The program is part of the Census of Marine Life, a global network of
researchers in more than 80 nations engaged in a 10-year scientific
initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and
abundance of life in the oceans.

Over three field seasons, from 2004 to 2007, Shillinger, co-author
Bryan Wallace of Duke University and Conservation International and a
team from Playa Grande outfitted 46 females on the beach with small
tags that emitted signals that were picked up by satellites, enabling
the team to track the turtles' location.

Shillinger and his colleagues worked with research oceanographers and
co-authors Steve Bograd and Helen Bailey at the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration and Daniel Palacios, also at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but from the University of
Hawaii. They examined turtle speeds and movements in relation to the
distribution and strength of the equatorial current system and found
that the turtles increased their speeds as they moved through
high-energy areas.

But how much of the turtles' trajectory was from being pushed around by
the currents and how much was the result of their own free will, they
couldn't tell until French oceanographer and co-author Philippe Gaspar
analyzed the data using a method he had developed to make that
distinction. Once the effect of the currents had been factored out, the
turtles were

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Old pages

Each day someone complains via e-mail that the
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and every link when the newspaper is made available at 2 a.m. each
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So the problem is with the browser in each reader's computer.
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found to be consistently heading in a south-southwesterly direction.

Year after year, the track was remaining the same. Not only were the
turtles heading in the same direction, they were actually trying to
follow an even narrower path than the raw data showed. As Bograd put
it, "They definitely had a place they wanted to go."

That place is the South Pacific Gyre, a vast region considered a
relative desert among the world's oceans. So why go there if it's so
barren?

"That's still a big puzzle as to why they choose to go to this region," Palacios said.

The only data available are satellite images showing the color of the
sea. Researchers interpret greener water to be richer in chlorophyll,
which is considered the foundation for the ocean food chain. Thus, the
relative abundance of chlorophyll is inferred to indicate the relative
richness of a fishery. Satellite images show very little green in the
South Pacific Gyre.

But, satellites can only penetrate about 25 meters (82 feet) below the
surface in the gyre. "Maybe the turtles are targeting something that is
deeper in the water column," Palacios said.

"What are they doing there is a big question," Shillinger said.
"Perhaps the tremendous water clarity may work to the advantage of
these leatherbacks because they are visual predators," he said. "They
can spot little specks of white out in the deep blue sea." Leatherbacks
dine exclusively on gelatinous zooplankton, such as jellyfish.

Shillinger also said that there is a substantial longline fishery in
that area, for bigeye and yellowfin tuna. "Obviously, the fish are
eating something and it's something we're not picking up in chlorophyll
signatures from satellite imagery," he said.

Given that leatherbacks have been recorded diving as deeply as 1,280
meters (4,200), they have ample choice as far as where in the water
column they choose to feed. And considering that they can grow to over
6 feet in length and weigh up to 2,000 pounds, it seems like a safe bet
that they're feeding on something.

The presence of the longline fishery in the South Pacific Gyre may be
one of the reasons for the steep decline of the leatherbacks, according
to Shillinger. Longliners going after fish such as tuna sometimes hook
turtles. This unintentional bycatch can take a heavy toll on a species.

Shillinger said there may also be another reason for the leatherbacks' population crash, one not so obvious from their data.

There was one turtle that didn't follow the migration route to the
South Pacific Gyre. Instead, it swam south along the coast of Central
America, where it stayed for the entire time the tag was working, 588
days.

"It seems logical that turtles would want to move along the coast,
because these are highly productive regions, where they don't have to
work as hard to find food," Shillinger said. Even though only one of
the 46 subjects of the study cruised the coastal areas, he said it
might be a rare survivor of a larger population that used to swim in
the coastal area, but could have been hit hard by human fishing
pressure in the near shore areas. Gillnets and longlines are major
threats to turtles in these areas.

Shillinger says they won't be able to answer that question until they
have gathered more data, since very little current data exists about
bycatch in these coastal fisheries. As the tags are designed to degrade
and fall off, the researchers haven't been able to capture the turtles'
movements beyond about two years. He suggests that turtles returning to
Costa Rica from the South Pacific Gyre may turn out to be using the
near shore habitats on their return.

There is still intense pressure to develop Playa Grande and that some
illegal development is ongoing, Shillinger added, "This beach is more
or less the last stand for nesting leatherbacks in the eastern Pacific,
so if this beach goes, it's going to be a real blow."

Shillinger and his colleagues are cautiously optimistic about the
impact their new data about the migration routes could have on
bolstering the leatherbacks' survival rate.

The level of detail the researchers obtained about when the turtles are
in a particular area along their route means it could be possible to
have a major impact on reducing turtles lost at sea to bycatch just by
temporary closures of certain areas. Temporary closures are likely to
be much more palatable than long-term ones to the various nations and
regulatory agencies that would have to agree on any closures for them
to be effective.

And because the turtles' migration route crosses international boundaries, it is vital to have international cooperation.

In his efforts to bring the plight of the leatherback populations in
the Pacific Ocean to people's attention, Shillinger teamed up with
Stanford graduate Mark Breier to create and launch the Great Turtle
Race, largely facilitated by Tagging of Pacific Predators program and
coordinated by the Leatherback Trust. In this educational project, a
race among leatherback turtles across the Pacific Ocean is simulated
using real data from the tagging project. This year's race, the second
annual, ended in June and for the first time included data from
leatherbacks that started from Indonesia, in addition to those starting
from the Americas.

The tagging of turtles and the Grate Turtle Race faced some criticism from environmental oprganization in Costa Rica.Coffee event on tap
at Museo Nacional

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A celebration that has been brewing for two centuries will begin July
29 at the Museo Nacional for the “200 years of coffee in Costa Rica”
event.

Supported by the German Embassy and the Instituto del Café de Costa
Rica, the celebration will begin at 2 p.m. with speeches by Rocio
Fernández, museum director, German Ambassador Wolf Daerr and Ronald
Peters Seevers, executive director of the coffee institute, according
to a museum release.

Coffee tasting and music will add flavor to the occasion as various
works of art detailing the history and impact of coffee on the nation
are discussed and examined the release said.

The museum already has a gallery of coffee-themed works by national
artists on display in preparation for the event. The free event will be
open to the public.

A few dollars brings a colorful investment. A cone-like cacho rests on loaf of sweet-milk bread

This is where you really can exercise that sweet tooth

By Jeremy Ariasof the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The noise of traffic passing along the busy street outside is partially
drowned by the low hum of refrigerators housing cold drinks and the
occasional ring of the cash register that marks the sale of another
pastry to a soon-to-be satisfied customer.

A mother enters the shop, her young son holding her hand and bouncing
excitedly up and down by the counter. The boy immediately begins the
chaotic, ritualistic children's dance: a youthful, energetic plea for
sweets.

This is Lerners Panadería, a cozy, friendly bread and pastry
shop just west of the Banco Nacional building in central San
José where the mutual desire for something tasty transcends
nationalities.

The air is ripe with the gentle, warm scent of baked breads stacked in rows under the register. Long loaves of melcochan
and sweet-milk bread line the shelves behind the counter and the
tantalizing cake and pie display seems to tempt passersby as it rotates
slowly near the street entrance.

All in all, these tiny shops, which can be found throughout the central
city, appear to have mastered the art of culinary seduction, and with
their universally low prices, they are almost impossible to resist.

Cone-shaped cachos are a delight with their delicate, flaky
bread surrounding a rich, smooth cream made of butter and vanilla. A
casual window shopper may enter prepared to pay considerably

more than the 450 colons they cost.

With the Tuesday rate of 540 colons to the U.S. dollar, even a heavenly
looking slice of lemon pie won't run a purchaser more than 93 cents.
The surrounding shops are no different.

At the Panadería y Reposteria Richypan on the busier Avenida Central, a
delicious rectangle of chocolate cake goes for 400 colons. At still
another store on Calle 6, a bag of sugar cookies, a chocolate-filled
doughnut and two heart-shaped cookies spread with jelly cost a total of
1,000 colons.

In the fast-paced capital of San José, with Burger King and McDonald's
competing for business from opposite sides of the Plaza de la Cultura,
it's nice to know that places like Lerners Panadería are still alive
and well, offering Costa Ricans and foreigners alike a place to rest
and sample the simpler side of life.

Back at Lerners, an older gentleman sips coffee as he chats with a
cashier, his legs crossed and his back eased casually against the wall
as the mother, her son satisfied with a newly-purchased cacho pastry,
jets off into the hustle-bustle of Calle 8.

Temporary visitors to this oasis provided by the panadería are quickly
lost in the faceless crowd. Another pair enters shortly afterwards, a
man and woman, also holding hands. The man smiles happily as his
companion orders two coffees, his eyes scan the shelves hungrily.

Another satisfied customer.

After 110 years 'Faust' finally returns to the historic Teatro Nacional

By Jeremy Ariasof the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Mephistopheles shall return to the Teatro Nacional this month with a
performance of the Charles Gounod opera “Faust” to be put on by the
Compañía Lírica Nacional.

Gounod's interpretation of the classic was the first performance put on
by the theater for its inauguration Oct. 21, 1897. The opera company
released the following synopsis of the opera:

Faust, played by José Luis Sola, is an aging scholar who offers
his soul in the afterlife to the demon Mephistopheles (Vesselin
Stoykov) in exchange for youth and good looks. Smitten by the enchanting Marguerite (Birgit Beer), a rejuvenated Faust
vies for her love with the noble protector Siebel (Joaquín
Yglesias) and eventually seduces and impregnates her, only to abandon
her to the torments of the devious Mephistopheles in her hour of
desperation.

In an exciting climax, Faust does battle with Marguerite's brother, a
returning soldier named Valentin (Fitzgerald

Ramos). The tale concludes
with a dramatic reunion between Faust and Marguerite, wherein she faces
her final temptation, and Faust must contemplate the price of his
bargain with Mephistopheles.

Scene design, costumes and lights will be arraigned by Stefano Poda
while Ramiro A. Ramírez is music director, according to the opera
company release.

The songs will be performed in French. The Orquesta
Sinfónica Nacional and the Coro Sinfónica Nacional also will
participate.

The opera will open July 27 at 5 p.m. Repeat performances will be July
30 at 7:30 p.m. and again Aug. 1, 3, 5 and 7. The performances Aug. 1,
5 and 7 will be at 7:30 p.m., and Aug. 3 at 5 p.m., according to the
release.

Prices vary depending upon the seating, but the range is between about
$40 for premium seats to as little as $2 for side gallery options,
according to a theater ticket guide. Tickets are available in the
theater ticket office or at the theater Web site.

Those high hole cards can be a bit tricky to playt

A common mistake made by amateurs is the way they play overcards
after the flop when the flop misses completely. Overcards are
hole cards that are of higher rank than any card on the board.

In deep stack no limit hold’em tournaments, players start with a lot of
chips. In these tournaments, the most important decisions are the
ones made after the flop. That’s not the case in tournaments
where the average stack is shallow. In these tourneys, pre-flop
decisions are essentially all you have. It’s an easier form of
poker to play. With fewer decisions to make, it’s essentially a
two-card game where you’re hoping for the best.

So let’s look at a sample hand in a deep stack tournament where you call a raise with K-Q and the flop comes 9-7-3.

If your opponent bets on the flop, fold your hand right there. Don’t try to be a hero. You have nothing!

But you decide to call anyway. Even if you do manage to improve
your hand by catching a king or a queen, there’s still no guarantee
that you’ll win the hand. Your opponent could have pocket nines,
or even A-A or K-K. He’d have you dominated, and you’d be
destined to lose a decent-sized pot.

Besides that, you’d only have a 14 percent chance of catching a king or
queen on the turn. When you combine that slim possibility with
the fact that even if you did get lucky, you still might lose, well,
folding your hand should be the obvious decision.

And there’s another reason to dump this hand. Say you did catch a
king or queen. The fact is that one pair hands are rarely good
enough to win big pots in no-limit hold’em. Trust me. Even if you
were to pair up your king, the best play is still to proceed with
caution.

The only situations where you might want to play after the flop with
overcards are if you’re taking a stab at stealing the pot on a bluff or
when you have additional outs to go along with your overcards.

For example, say you decide to raise before the flop with K-J.
The big blind calls and the flop comes 2-2-7. Your opponent
checks.

There’s no way for your opponent to know that you missed the flop
completely. So, make one more bet on the flop hoping to get him to
fold his hand on your bluff. Now, if he calls, or worse, raises, put
on the brakes; there’s no need to lose any more chips than necessary.

You can also safely play your overcards when you flop a straight or flush draw.

In this example, you call a raise with Qd-Jd and the flop comes
8s-9h-4d. You’re obviously hoping to catch a ten to complete a
straight, or even a jack or queen to give you a possible winning hand.

If a ten comes on the turn or river, you’d play your hand aggressively
in a big pot. But if a jack or queen hits, again, play your hand
cautiously.

If instead of a straight draw you flop a flush draw, you’ve got the
green light to play your two overcards. This situation yields a very
powerful drawing hand. In some cases, it will even be a favorite over
a pair on the flop.

Say you’re dealt the As-Ks and your opponent holds Jh-Jd. The flop
comes 9s-6s-2d. While the pocket jacks might appear to be the best
hand, your suited A-K will actually win the pot over 50% of the time.
Go ahead and play this hand with a big bet.

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